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Jon Tobias Nov 2011
I want to go back
To when I was a child
And I didn’t know what it meant
To be self conscious

When beautiful was synonymous
To how nice a person was to you

When I used to fit in the smallest of places
Like in the cupboard under the kitchen sink

I never imagined it was anything other than
Underneath the kitchen sink

But I felt safe there
During bouts of my father’s fury

Like a mouse in a jar
When the dog’s tongue could still lick its cheek
Close enough to understand
The severity of teeth

In my living room
there is a hole in the floor
From a house fire
Just big enough for me to fit into
If I took the shape of a ball

I know I could never fill the hole in your chest

But my heart
Is a bomb shelter
Big enough for the both of us

And if beauty really can be synonymous with nice
Then call me gorgeous
‘Cause it’s all I got

No

Call me, Gorgeous
Why don’t you
You should have me on speed dial by now

I mean
I can bullet proof vest your lonely
And if you tell me I am handsome
I’ll probably fall in love with you

I mean
I am too awkward and lunky to fit anywhere nowadays
Other than a hole in a floor
When cigarette ash crop circled my fears back to life
And I realized that being a man means

Really

You have no place to hide

Unless

It’s in a bomb shelter
I built in the back of my heart

Probably

We could be safe there
I don't know what I am doing anymore.
Gerald Campbell Nov 2015
Fish is the worlds problem
Fins and gills a and poisonous jelly
Resting in the crevices of their more vulnerable kiddy-make-cry
To slice at young flesh is exquisite
Knowing the scar you're leaving behind
Will vanish within hours
Yet
Will remain fire-hot and ******
For the rest if the kid's fish-hating life
It's a small pond they took you to
The deepest water beneath a lunky wood and metal bridge
E
Which creaked and groaned begging to give in
We say on that bridge, poisoned legs hanging and dangling
Looking at Aunt Terry coming up out of the water much too quickly
Gravity deciding it wasn't through yet with her swimming suit top
We laughed from emberassment
But even the rowdiest among us clammed up
Breathing harder and deeper than they had ever done before
On the cusp of puberty every single *****, heretofore shrunken and shriveled from the unfortunately cold water in that unnamed pond
Every flaccid, dripping **** , when the brain sent down the message concerning the incredible size and girth of Aunt Terry's ****
Ever little immature Ramma Lamma Ding **** got a fresh infusion of prime hemoglobin straight to the juju
All we knew to do was hide in bushes
Pretend we're taking a **** while in reality we were expending the last couple of minutes it took to coax out that tiny gelatinous goop.
We spit it out of our manhood, unconcerned with where it may have
Eventually fallen. It had lost it's novelty long before we hacked it

Terry was embarrassed, to be sure
She knew what the boys were doing
It didn't bother her at all
There was a time when they fought for it. As if were spoils of war
That delusion didn't last for very long

What could she do? Her swim shirt was ruined. She had to get out
They jerred her as she found her way to the door
On one side freedom, albeit bogged down worh mamy many secrets

This could be the last time anyway
Rumor around town is that the slaughterhouse bought the land and all it's water ways. They planned to use it as  a reservoir for newly killed swine within six months you would not have recognized the ole fishing hole
The hooks baited with frozen shrimp
Grown ups helping sons find minnows gone, ahh, long gone, like the best years of our lives
We stood up as one in order to survey
The carnage, carnage even at this early stage wasa harbinger of bad omens to come
In every inch of the pond, diluting it if possible,
Pig's blood swine blood
The rats that ran with the pigs
As if they too had been specifically sent to insure that enough blood was let into the swamp
Dead swine, harder than a hobby horse, eyes still open, hopin' there's been some mistake
A lack of regulations combined with forced apathy kept us from caring
Much about what e believed was an injustice . We were children. It was enough hell to see the clean waters replaced by pig blood, pig guts. offal, intestines and other items that remain inside the body for a very good reason

May you find streams and brooks
Lakes and. Oceans
Of baptizing water
May you remember with great fondness your toes playing in the sand
Remember, my children, how crystal clear and pristine were the waters
Good, well tended salt water for catfish
Not a pool full of crimson stench.
This is my childhood. Shouldn't someone have let me know a long time ago that you were planning on turning it into the slaughtered pig open grave
It can't be
It just can't be

(And yet, it is)
Based on a true story

— The End —